Any Port
by cge0361
Summary: A young woman daring to surmount any obstacle to give her eevee the most special gift that she can for Christmas meets a number of fellows sorely lacking in holiday cheer. (Note: Sequel to Can't Escape and Nor Gloom Of Night.)
1. Disorientation

Any Port, Part 1: Disorientation.

* * *

"Try it again."

Slowing to a stop after one step, Lennon sighed, emitting a cloud of breath that quickly disguised itself amid gently falling snow. The lucario turned about and caught his mistress as she stepped forward behind him. He concentrated when the reaches of their auras crossed. "There is nothing to try. The device was destroyed. I discarded it."

Rhiannon sighed, producing a similar puff. "Wasn't there an emergency whistle built into the case? We could signal—"

Lennon tugged her gently to encourage her to follow him again. "I tried it."

"I didn't hear you try it."

Together they trudged along a soggy path being cut through a blanket of snow by a vulpix. Her efforts were something of a trade-off, revealing a clear path and discovering any hazards that the snow might conceal, but also creating a trail of moisture and mud that would soon freeze again, turning their path and wet feet upon it to ice. Sasha's extremities, small as they were, remained warm enough, but Lennon knew that the only thing worse than feeling frost forming on his toes was to stop feeling it.

Lennon concentrated on a message to both, but his mistress in particular. "I'm sorry, but we must stop. If I don't warm my paws soon…"

"I'm the one who should be sorry," Rhiannon admitted with a tone of dejection, "I got us into this and I shouldn't have. I got too excited when he…"

Sasha wandered out of ear-shot of her mistress and teammate to investigate something tickling her senses that was not snowflakes. With a shift of the wind she was certain that she smelled smoke. Turning her head at an angle, she also thought that she might have heard something faint through the dense forest ahead. Dashing back to the others, she got Lennon's attention and warmed his feet with an ember attack.

Lennon leapt and yelped, cursing the vulpix in his natural tongue.

Ignoring—and amused by—his insults, Sasha asked, "Can you smell the smoke?"

"That's my fur," Lennon grumbled to the vulpix, despite the assault having been insufficient to do more than melt away some frost.

"No, over there." Sasha pitched another ember long and distant, almost reaching the tree line.

Rhiannon asked, "Whatever it is, can we go there?"

Lennon reluctantly failed to argue and took a step. Doing so hurt him badly enough that he could not suppress his reaction: Sasha's ember warmed his feet just enough to feel how frozen they were.

"Len, I'm putting you in your ball," Rhiannon warned her lead as her numbed fingers felt for a ball that was his.

The lucario coughed a protest while re-engaging his telepathy. "Madame, please. I'm fine, and you need—"

His mistress reached out to him and captured him in a loose hug. "You need to get out of this cold. Sasha will get me there."

"What if you're attacked? She can't sense a pokemon about to strike, and—"

In a flash, Lennon was recalled.

Sasha smiled with pride: finally, her big chance to show off how useful she was without him upstaging her. "Let's go fast! You can't slip if you're faster than the freezing!"

Once more trudging through a freshly-muddied path, Rhiannon did her best to keep up with the giggles of her vulpix as it melted its way through the forest toward a faint scent.

The forest's density lessened when they approached an iced-over pond. Tracing around its circumference, the sound was long lost but the scent of smoke persisted. Rhiannon, unaware of her vulpix's abrupt pause to check the air, accidentally kicked her. "Sasha?"

The vulpix huffed a flame that cleared snow from her face. "I stopped. I think it's a house but it's getting too dark to see far."

"Thank God; I was afraid it would turn out to be an angry Fire-type causing trouble."

Sasha swallowed a smart remark before leading onward into a clearing. As they neared the source of the smoke, Sasha heard the sound again. Rhiannon did, too. It was a voice, and a very fine one at that, working through a holiday standard.

"…brightly shone the moon that night, though the frost was cruel; when a poor man came in sight, gath'ring winter fuel…"

Rhiannon, despite a weakness of voice brought on first by the cold air and second by taking a deep breath of it, picked up the next verse. "Hither, page, and stand by me, if thou know'st it, telling; yonder peasant, who is he? Where and what his dwelling?"

Zap flashed his jewels and caught behind the falling snow an outline of a young lady and a vulpix hopping about before her as it pounced and melted the snow that lay ahead. Surprised at his tune's recognition, the ampharos upped the ante. "Ma'am he lives but three chain hence, south end of this clearing; just beyond a picket fence, his cabin is nearing."

Sasha, now well out of ember, could barely continue clearing the way, merely breathing heavily and letting what flame may emerge melt a narrow trough ahead of herself.

Rhiannon started being careful about her footing, placing one before the other to avoid standing snow at the path's sides. She also skipped a stanza. "Sire, the night is colder now and the wind blows stronger; lead me to your humble home, I can go no longer."

Zap held a couple pieces of chopped wood from the pile he came to visit to her, and then asked her to carry them. As she took them up, Zap knelt and helped Sasha find better footing before returning to both the tune, and the trail of already-trod snow he cut when he came. "Mark my footsteps good, my page, tread thou in them quickly; every moment in this sleet lets the snow grow thickly." He took up a couple more log fragments for himself and started away, beginning a tune that she did not recognize at all.

In the singer's steps she trod, where the snow lay dented. The snow's cold now seemed assuaged, as though it relented. Therefore Christian maids be sure, pokemon possessing, ye whose vulpix have fine nose shall yourselves find blessing.

* * *

Zap checked on some brewing coffee, glancing toward his master. "Even you couldn't turn her back out with the storm like this, could you?"

Mortimer gripped his raggedy bedding and rolled over to face away from the room and those who stood in it. "No, no; but this ain't no place for a pretty little thing like that."

Sasha stole the compliment with a smile and dropped it with a command. "Ree! Come here! The fire's so warm I just wanna jump in it."

Rhiannon moved slowly toward Sasha and knelt nearby both her and the fireplace.

Zap filled a few mugs. "Go ahead and toss those in."

The trainer found an empty space before herself and set the logs she bore there. "I'll let you tend to the fire, if you don't mind."

"Okay," Zap agreed dismissively, "but you'll have to tend to this, instead." He sat one mug beside her.

As Rhiannon reached near it, Sasha gave it a sniff and complained. "Coffee? Yucky! Make cocoa! Lenny's gonna want cocoa."

Sasha's mistress scolded her. "You know you can't talk to people like that. But, you're right." She raised her head and turned around somewhat. "Uh, is it okay if I let my other pokemon out? A couple need some help at least."

Mortimer grumbled. Zap translated. "If they're not too big. This place is pushing it at three. And, I'll see about cocoa. There might be some instant somewhere."

Rhiannon felt for Lennon's ball and asked Sasha to pick a place to release him. She chose Zap's bedding. Lennon fell as he reconstituted, bumping his head against the wall behind him. Sensible in seconds, his sensors splayed. He threw himself forward, found no footing, and found the cabin's wooden floor with his ventral spike. Sasha laughed until Rhiannon shushed her.

"Len, it's okay. These two men are letting us warm up."

Lennon knelt beside his mistress, placing one of his paws near her hands and raising the other defensively, before establishing aural telepathy with her. "They deceive you. One man, one pokemon: ampharos. Wait, more than that, I sense something behind the door where you released me. A Psychic-type. It's asleep but not unaware. I don't like it. I can feel it synchronizing with us. And—" Lennon subtly glanced upward, "—we're leaving." He tried to pull Rhiannon to her feet, but she resisted.

"I wasn't deceived," she whispered, "just wrong. Are you sure they're dangerous?"

Her lucario continued. "The human, very. His aura is disgusting. The ampharos is stained with treachery. The Psychic is sending me false information. I can't see what—" A squeaky noise interrupted his transmission.

Slowly a closet door opened inward and a white wing with accentuating red, black—and a little bit of golden—feathers emerged first and the green bird that owned it soon after. "There are many things you can't see in auras," it warned, "learn to use your eyes and your reason, too, or you may as well be blind." Vera walked around the stranger and her dogs to flop down in Mortimer's recliner using a very distinct technique.

"What is that?" Rhiannon asked Lennon politely.

"Xatu," Lennon answered, "my Fighting-type attacks will be resisted. Your other pokemon must protect you against her."

Vera hummed, "I do not foresee combat in my immediate future. You may pretend that I'm not here if that helps."

"You'd like that," Rhiannon overheard Lennon consider as an unspoken reply.

Zap came near the recliner. "Did we wake you up?"

She brushed his chin with her left wing. "No, I started expecting this to happen before sunrise this morning."

Lennon's ears lowered, remembering what happened before sunrise that morning.

Rhiannon bade Lennon to sit, found his feet, and took them in her hands. "You're still too cold. This doesn't hurt, does it?"

"A little, but not too much," he admitted with slight understatement.

Mortimer leaned up a little, noticing the girl and her two pokemon beside the fire and Zap approaching with a mug. "Stepped in a bit of frostbite out there? Don't get those tootsies too hot with the fire or it'll get even worse. Holdin' 'em like that ain't a bad idea, though."

Zap suggested that Lennon bundle in his comforter for the time being and turned on Mortimer's radio to a low volume.

Rhiannon motioned toward her ball clip. "I'm going to let my other pokemon out, now, okay?"

"There are a few wound-treatment sprays on the bookshelf," Vera interjected, "and try to keep your eevee away from Mortimer's chest."

Standing carefully, Lennon hobbled to the bookshelf and found two potion sprays while Rhiannon found Adrina's pokeball. The altaria whistled weakly. Lennon bit off the locking tab of a spray and doused Adrina's wing. They shared a brief conversation about their situation while Zap ventured to pry a little.

"Ree, was it?"

"Rhiannon, but that's okay."

"Do you live near here?"

"No. I'm from Hollingsmoth Island."

Zap tried to settle in beside her, but Lennon's snarl changed his mind. He instead went to his cot and Lennon took the position Zap intended. "That's a long way to wander in a snow storm."

"Yeah, but it's Christmas." She reached to her ball clip and released an eevee. "I wanted to give this little guy an evolution. He met a glaceon owned by a vacationer one day and fell in love with ice. Started getting in trouble because of it, too. Anyway, I heard if you find an iced-over rock in a place that's cold enough and train your eevee there, it will evolve that way, so I decided to bring him to the Azom Heights and see what would happen."

"You travel light," Zap noted.

"We got into some trouble."

The eevee squirmed free of Rhiannon's arms and started checking out the cabin. Sasha followed behind him.

Zap looked downward. "We reside light. You're welcome to stay and have some drinks—"

Mortimer piped up, "Just who do ya' think owns this place? You let a sheep use your address for a music of the month club and this is the respect you get."

"—but we don't have much for supplies to spare."

Lennon barked something across the room to Sasha, who, with the eevee, was investigating a chest with a rope and pulley attached to its lid. Ignored, Lennon barked again.

Sasha jumped. "Oh, he says we don't want your… is that like, 'gifts?' "

Lennon clarified.

"Ah, new words! Uh, your—cherry tree!" Sasha beamed.

Mortimer rolled over again. "If you don't want my cherry tree, there's a front door and a back door. Take your pick."

Rhiannon pulled her lucario into a hug and said nothing.

* * *

Zap touched the radio's antenna with one of his horns to improve reception. "…will continue until well after daybreak tomorrow. All residents of Nybomy Fields, Fenchone Plantation, Allylidene Forest, Yureido Cove, Mount Buchu, Azom Heights, Dithio; and until 0300 hours, Sulmepride are advised to remain sheltered. Pending further developments, we now resume our regular programming. The time is 19:04. You are listening to Fenchone's Forgotten Favorites on FM-73.8, N6XFP."

"Gonna need more wood," Mortimer contributed.

"Gonna need more wool," Zap refined. "I wish I still had what I had when I was little. Although I wouldn't be able to carry the firewood very well if I had to trade my arms for it." Zap, passing through the wash room, worked his hooves into loosely knitted booties, and draped a very poorly fitting jacket over himself. A chill rushed in while he rushed out through the rear exit. The last sound heard from him was not the shutting of the door or the whistles of the wind but the first verse of another song.

"He's been in bed this whole time, hasn't he?" Rhiannon asked of her guardian with a whisper.

Lennon grunted faintly. "I sense in him an intention to move."

A moment later, Mortimer shrugged off his raggedy covers and stood with a groan to cross his cabin and also depart.

"Now would be a good time to leave," Lennon suggested to Rhiannon.

"Why aren't you telling me everything, Len?" she asked him, "This isn't like you."

"Because he can smell the past, yet what he senses cannot explain it," Vera interjected.

Rhiannon faced Vera's direction when she spoke. "Can you explain it?"

The recliner groaned a little as Vera adjusted her posture. "Yes."

Silence dominated for as long as Sasha's patience held out. "Well?"

Vera leaned over the chair's right arm-rest and spoke directly to the vulpix in a very quiet voice. "Sometimes it's impolite to tell other people's stories for them." She straightened out again. "If I may address you by your given name"—Vera paused, until receiving an affirmative response—"Rhiannon, it is a pleasure to meet you. My name is Vera—"

"A lie!" Lennon both barked in his natural tongue and projected for his mistress's benefit. "A small one, but still," he added, sensing a cooling of the room that was not due to the weather.

Vera trilled scoldingly and responded, "A rose by any other name. You don't object to your partner's eight letters being reduced to three. Please, look upon my four with mercy; I started with fifteen."

"That is a lot, I guess," Rhiannon replied.

"I sometimes wonder if those unown give everything a unique name just to keep all of themselves employed. As I was saying, you may call me 'Vera,' as that is how my League registration reads, no matter what the symbol pokemon named me."

"I'm happy to meet you, too. I've never met a xatu before. Uh, if you don't mind and it's okay with you, I'd—"

"You may, but mind the little table beside the chair. Mortimer would become grumpy if something happened to the photo he keeps on it."

Rhiannon left the fire's side and walked slowly to the recliner. She took up Vera's wing and felt along its length. "It feels totally different than Adrina's." Her altaria un-nestled her head from her wings at the sound of her name and chirped lightly. Rhiannon extended the liberty she took as far as Vera's beak.

Interrupted by a faint noise, Rhiannon asked, "What are you two getting into?"

"Nothing," although Sasha intimated otherwise with her inflection. Lennon crossed the room and pulled the eevee away from the suspended rope he was tugging on.

Mortimer returned, flocked and shivering. "The outhouse is vacant if you need it." He shooed three canid pokemon away from his chest and returned to his repose.

Zap returned shortly thereafter with as much wood as he could carry. "That should be enough to last us through the night." He looked around. Lennon had his blanket, an altaria took his cushion. "Are you hungry?" he asked, and the reactions of all but his roommates answered him. "I can make some noodles, Ma'am, but you'll have to share it lightly, unless some of your pokemon are satisfied with berries."

Rhiannon returned to a place near the fire, and as she knelt, near Lennon. "We will appreciate that. Thank you."

Vera suddenly sprang from the recliner, returned to the closet, and shut the door behind herself. Lennon stood in a defensive posture as she passed by, and was slow to settle again.

"May I sit in the recliner?" With approval, Rhiannon returned to the chair and settled into it. It reeked of cigar smoke, but its comfort could not be denied. Lennon sat cross-legged beside it, while Sasha and the eevee climbed atop and settled in. She placed a hand upon each. Better than a blanket.

Soon Zap set up a folded table that had two chairs and placed a frugal dinner upon it. Rhiannon recited grace while Mortimer dragged himself over for a share. The pokemon stuck to berries almost exclusively, although Sasha was gifted a little something from the table when Mortimer figured that nobody was looking.

* * *

The fire died down to almost nothing overnight. The cabin stood still and silent as all within slept a little late that morning. It was a calm that begged to be shattered. Lennon opened one eye; a hostile aura approached swiftly.

Thud! came a knock at the door that was more of a punch. Granted, if he who threw it actually put some effort into it, the door would have broken away. Mortimer grumbled and slid out of his bed, immediately cursing the warmth lost in so doing. He came around a half-wall beside his door and opened it enough to speak through.

"Whaddyu want?"

"To get on with my route," Ford admitted coldly. "I don't know how long this break in the winds will last." The dragonite shoved a couple packages and a few letters against Mortimer's chest and turned away, flexing his wings in preparation of take-off.

"Well, well; thanks for not scattering them all up and down the trail between here and the auto path."

"I was tempted," he growled before re-fastening the strap of his mail bag and departing.

Mortimer sat the packages before his bookshelf. Then, pulling a frayed rope and lifting the lid of his chest, he sifted through and withdrew two items. One, a pine-tree shaped air freshener, and two, a staple gun with which to tack it to the bookshelf's wooden frame. "Ho, ho, ho," he sarcastically commented before going to the wash room to make himself presentable.

"I guess we should get going," Rhiannon called across the cabin to Mortimer and Zap, although the latter was sound asleep, "thanks again for your hospitality." She recalled Adrina and bade her other pokemon to her side.

Mortimer leaned through the doorway after he heard his front door open. "You ain't gonna make your lucario walk through that snow are ya'?"

Lennon did not appreciate the insinuation of weakness, or being drawn back inside the cabin.

Mortimer continued, "Last thing you wanna do after gettin' a frostbite warmed up is make it cold again. Especially since there ain't any pokemon centers near here to get him taken care of right. There's a vet in Yureido Cove with a machine, but if you got lost findin' your way here, you better let me get you there so you don't get any loster. I've gotta go there and resupply while there's a chance of something still bein' left on the shelves."

Rhiannon, Sasha, Mortimer, and an eevee slowly worked their way along a narrow and obscure path to an equally obscure and un-designated route that delivered them to Yureido Cove. Although school was not officially canceled, since all the pupils lived near-enough-by that failure to attend was inexcusable even beneath a few decimeters of snow, the lesson being taught seemed to be the physics of solidified water packed into spheres and given parabolic trajectories. Sasha talked at Mortimer very nearly the whole way, although more for her own amusement and Rhiannon's benefit than for any concern about what Mortimer might care to learn about.

Yureido's small market was well-shopped but not yet bare. Despite Mortimer alerting Rhiannon to the market's policy, after recalling Sasha and her eevee, she released Lennon and entered.

"Hey!" boomed the owner, "Can't you read? No pokemon allowed in here, no exceptions!"

Filling a basket with non-perishables, Mortimer butted in, "The girl needs to use your phone if the lines are still up."

"One exception," Rhiannon advised as she followed Lennon toward the merchant's counter. Her lucario scraped from within his fur a fine necklace and revealed a thin cylindrical white pendant with a red tip.

Defeated, the merchant stolidly responded to Mortimer's comment. "The phone's a crown to start and a bob for every minute."

"My treat," Mortimer dismissively muttered as he rounded an aisle's obstructive display.

Rhiannon started dialing as soon as she received the telephone. "I'll pay you back. You've been so kind, it's the least I can do."

Mortimer was not sure how that k-word got pinned to his lapel, but he made no immediate action to remove it.

The telephone connected through. "Hi, Mom! Wha—Yureido Cove. Yeah, about that snow…"

Visibly, Lennon ignored the shopkeeper and the shopkeeper ignored Lennon. In actuality, Lennon was paying careful attention to the other's aura, and the other was paying careful attention to the lucario's aura sensors. In a sense they were already intimate friends; they mutually understood each other's dedication to the same goal: to ensure that nobody and nothing caused any trouble. If their personalities were ones that could be put at ease, that realization may have done so.

"…I'm not coming home until I get him up that mountain, Mom. Then I miss Christmas Day; it's not like Dad's going to be there. He always sends a card. I'll surely be back before Three Kings' so this way the tree will have company the whole way through. You can too believe it; you always said I inherited Dad's hair and your gumption."

Mortimer placed his basket of goods on the counter.

"There isn't a pokemon center here. I'm at a store, but it isn't a pokemart. That would be easier than going back to Dithio to get one from the center there; let me check." Rhiannon set the telephone aside for a moment. "Pardon me, but can I buy a trainer's device here?"

"I've got a used match reporter somewhere," admitted the merchant. "The shell's cracked and the screen's a little glitchy, but I guess that's not a big deal."

"It's his problem," she said with a giggle as she playfully ran her fingertips around between her lucario's ears. "I don't have money with me, but if you can register it for me, I should have enough in my account to cover it, and this phone call. And supplies. Actually," she returned to the phone, "I should be okay, but if you were going to give me any money for Christmas, it might be better in my League account than in my stocking…"

Mortimer finished his transaction with the merchant, who then started looking around in a silver-lined safe containing electronic gizmos and other valuables. "If she comes up short, put it on my tab. It ain't like I won't be taking it back outta ya' next time we play poker."

Rhiannon wrapped up her telephone call and turned toward Mortimer. "I said I should be paying you back, but thank you."

"Don't get all sappy. I'm just doin' what I gotta to get you on your way and out of mine."

The merchant tapped a reporter against the edge of his counter and it made a sound. "Alright, what's your I.D.?"

"EW–31305."

He placed it on the counter and slid it before her. "You'll have to put in your PIN and deactivate your old device."

Lennon handed it to his mistress and let her enter a code.

She handed it back for him to hold and whispered, "How much do I have?"

Lennon looked at the funds once, and then again after a faint chime. He concentrated on a message. "Your stocking is stuffed."

* * *

Rhiannon looked the part of a mountain climber as she exited the store wearing much of her yuletide advance. Lennon tried to hurry her along, but she smelled something in the air not unlike a comfortably broken-down chair. "Mortimer?"

He cast a grouchy glance at the wooden Indian standing beside himself. "The vet's on the other end of town. Since that ain't too far, you might see if he'll take your lucario as a limp-in. He won't take battler cases unless it's life-threatening, but since it's just stupidity going up the Azoms in the dead of winter, he might have a little pity for ya'."

"That's good to know, but I was going to ask if it'd be alright if we stopped in on the way back down."

Mortimer took a deep drag. "Well you know I haven't the heart to turn you away if you do. Just don't be tellin' people about it. Having girls younger than the formula say comin' 'round can't be any good for my reputation; whatever's left of it. And, make sure that you all do make it back down. There are a bunch of those rocks that ice over and can make an eevee evolve up there, but the sneasels got a thing for 'em, too. You got a pretty good setup with a Fighting and a Fire, but your eevee doesn't look tough enough to hold 'em off and your altaria will get eaten up like cotton candy if you let it out of the ball."

"I think we'll be okay. Lennon can feel them coming. The ursaring only got the jump on us because I had—"

"Turned your back for a second. Even if you've got a ninetales with you, you turn your back on just one of those little shits and somebody comes home dead. Azom sneasels form packs and move by the dozen, Kiddo. Don't treat it like you're visiting a ski resort."

With some effort, Lennon established a telepathic link to Mortimer. "I understand now. We'll be careful. And, I apologize."

"Yeah, it's nothing. Now, get out of my head and get her and that pup up the mountain. I'm already havin' to put up with the bird going in there; my brain ain't got room for two."

* * *

"…which puts you," Doctor Baysleft rolled the eevee over and started tickling his belly, making it squirm, "in the bottom of the eighth with three runners on. Now," he lifted the pokemon from his exam table and placed it on the floor, "why don't you go out and have some fun in the snow with your friend?" He opened a door that led to a fenced backyard, and Sasha went out behind him. "Your other two are in worse condition, I understand?"

Lennon stepped forward and climbed upon the table to be examined.

Rhiannon found a seat nearby. "I think we got him out of the cold in time, but his feet are still bothering him."

The doctor began his examination there, but gave the lucario a complete once-over. "Okay, recall him. He needs a rejuvenation pass for his feet, and I want to see the report."

For once, Lennon did not feel a need to protest. Either this doctor was completely trustworthy or his aura sensors were on the blink.

While Lennon got processed, Rhiannon released Adrina. "I used a medical spray on her wing after Lennon drove the ursaring off, and again that night, but she's still hurting."

The altaria's examination was very brief. "Multiple dislocations in her right wing. I suggest we send her over the network to Coumarin. There's a specialist there; he'll get her flying faster than anybody else in the region can."

Rhiannon stood and called her altaria's name and received a strained reply. "Maybe I can bring you back in the summer. I know you wanted to enjoy the view from the top," she said as she approached the examination table with an extended hand. Adrina craned her neck into her trainer's palm and brushed her arm with a fluffy and still functional wing. "Doctor, do you think I can have her back in time for Christmas?"

"I think you can have her back for Christmas carols, but she won't be fit to fly."

Carefully pulling the dragon against herself, Rhiannon hugged her with a sigh. "You get better for me, okay?"

Adrina sang softly as her owner recalled her and handed her over to the doctor for transference.

Lennon's treatment concluded. Baysleft examined the report while Lennon tested out his toes. "I understand it's part of his duty, but he really needs more down-time. Like sleep-deprivation, if he keeps using active aura skills all the time, his health is going to deteriorate and his life-span will be shortened; drastically if you don't act now."

"I know. I've told him so many times that I never want to replace him. He doesn't listen to me."

Lennon suddenly hugged her. "I listened to you. Then, an ursaring came for you. I cannot let that—"

Unable to hear him, Baysleft interrupted Lennon's communique. "I can't prescribe anything for disobedience. But, I'd like to, because I hate seeing a lucario go to waste. I can, however, suggest you get him some booties. There's an old lady here in town who makes them. Usually, to order, but maybe she'll have something close enough ready-made."

"It seems like everybody knows somebody in town who can solve a problem whenever one comes up," she mused.

"That's how folk are around these parts. Everyone's got something unique that they do."

Soon, Rhiannon called an end to Sasha and the eevee's play and recalling the latter, they left the village doctor and sought the village cobbler.

* * *

Vera puffed on her pipe once for every puff Mortimer pulled from his cigar. She made it look meaningful, but she did it to annoy him. Presently, his thoughts were too distracting for him to notice her mocking gesture. When his radio went to commercial, Vera broke her silence. "Even if that did happen, it would not be your fault."

"But, will it happen?"

Vera stood silently.

"Come on! It's your big chance to do something useful around here."

Vera puffed a ring.

Zap chuckled. "Vince used to say things like that when he was frustrated with her, too."

Mortimer grunted. "This isn't asking which little league team to put your lunch money on."

Breaking her silence, Vera commented, "If you feel so strongly, then do something about it. Otherwise, don't. I am here for your emotional benefit, not to make your choices for you."

Zap brought Mortimer a drink and whispered something into his ear. Mortimer took two sips before realizing what the ampharos meant, turning on his radio, and relaxing.


	2. Taiga

Any Port, Part 2: Taiga.

* * *

Lennon studied the map with concentrated effort; it could not come with them and the only map feature of Rhiannon's replacement device was etched into its hinged cover. The girl waited quietly, listening to the sound of envelopes sliding across each other rapidly. Sasha was more interested in something on the wall near the map of the greater Azom Heights and Allylidene Forest area. "That Ford guy must be really good at his job! It says he's employee of the month in January, and in February, and in March, and in April, and in May, and in June, and in July, and in August, and in September, and in October, and in November, and in December, and… that's all."

The shuffling sound paused briefly. "There's another plaque just like it halfway up the mountain. I think that's plenty."

Rhiannon asked incredulously, "The mail service gives employee of the month to a mailman who would scatter Mr. Mortimer's stuff all over his yard?"

"No, but if I did that it wouldn't be undeserved."

"Why?" she asked, "What did he do?"

Another pause. "Something inhumane and inhuman. I don't want to talk about it, young lady. In fact, unless you need some stamps, I'll appreciate you minding your business."

Lennon signaled his readiness, and together they followed Sasha's lead as she brought them northward. Rhiannon sang softly to herself, quickly missing the accompaniment of Adrina, and kept her mind off of the troubles that weighed upon her mind, spawned equally by her ursaring experience and her time in the cabin. The field where Lennon's feet failed him provided no challenge, and by nightfall they were high enough to notice the change in the environment and atmosphere. Lennon pitched the tent, Sasha started a fire, Rhiannon fixed their meal, and her eevee delighted in the snow until he was called to attention.

"I got some special treats just for you, boy. It's a little early, but merry Christmas." She withdrew from a plastic wrapper a light and fluffy snack cake and offered it to her eevee, which consumed it eagerly and leapt into her lap while licking his chops once it was gone.

Sasha immediately complained across their private channel. "Again you get goodies. You always get goodies. And, you never share."

The eevee's only response was to stick out his tongue. That expression, not unfamiliar to their method of banter, was about to change to one of remorseful confusion.

"I wish you would like to share with me. I liked sharing with you when I got goodies." Sasha wandered away with her ears and tails and spirit half-drooped.

"Sasha? Would you like—"

Hisses of a fully-powered ember turning a little snow into a little steam indicated the vulpix's departure.

After a short conflict with his mistress that followed, despite it regarding a completely unrelated topic, Lennon's current expression became similar to Sasha's last. "I refuse to let my guard down again. When we are home and safe, I will obey, but out here, I will keep you safe at any cost."

"You can do shifts with Sasha at least. I'm sure the doctor's right. You can't keep pushing yourself for my sake."

"I wish that I could. I wish that I could do more." He drew close and found her embrace.

"I know, Len. That's why you're already doing too much."

The eevee slipped away in favor of becoming pinned between twain friends. He considered following the melted trail that led to Sasha, she now rustling bushes and making happy sounds that indicated that she found some berries or something else delightful, but what good would that do? It a matter of his actions rather than his words, he sat near the fire and tried to think about a way to show her how he felt.

Despite a reluctance to release him and his warming fur, Rhiannon put the mission first. "Lennon, does the reporter at least have a radio circuit? If there's more storm on the way, we should try to know while we can get back to town, or Mr. Mortimer's cabin, in time."

Lennon fiddled with it for a moment and some sound came out. "I found a 'WX' button, but—" as he held it up and rotated it slowly, it interrupted him with a weather report being read by a machine over significant levels of static noise. "More snow is coming, but not tomorrow."

Rhiannon breathed a sigh of relief, and a small puff of frost. "Alright, let's sleep now so we can get up by dawn. There is a ice rock near enough that we can get there and at least be on our way back in a day, right?"

Lennon's delayed response worried her slightly. "Yes, but we have to cross a river. It looked wide and the map showed no bridges. If Adrina could fly—"

"We'll find a way. Bring the kids back."

Lennon barked curtly, Sasha returned a whine, and the eevee yielded his attention and rubbed against Rhiannon's leg before she recalled him.

Inside her tent, Rhiannon tried to get comfortable, but the ground was rather inconsiderate, presenting rocks and sticks that demanded to be felt through the tent's floor and Rhiannon's new bedding. Lennon sat padmasana at her feet, eyes shut and aura sensors splayed. Sasha laid on Rhiannon's torso, tails splayed similarly and her limbs no more orderly. Her natural warmth was comfortable, but rather localized. It also had a beef.

"When do I get to evolve?"

"I thought you liked being little."

"I'm not the little one, now."

"Once he becomes a glaceon, you will be again."

"But he'll be stronger."

"And Fire-weak. I'm sure you'll still be able to put him in his place if he gives you any mischief."

"I don't want to put him in his place. I just want to be…" Sasha huffed a tiny wisp to her left side, briefly illuminating the tent's interior.

"The center of attention like always?"

Sasha shifted a little, warming up just enough to be noticed. "That's not it."

"A little bundle of explosives, bringing woe upon he who might underestimate you?"

Sasha yelped a laugh. "Yes. But, that's not it."

"What, then?"

"I don't know. I can't make the words. Or, find them."

Rhiannon placed her left hand upon Sasha's back and applied a little pressure while scratching her fingernails gently into her nape. "Tell me when you do. And, don't worry; if what I've heard is true, there's a chance he'll have a new-found respect for you after evolving. Even before you put an ember between his ears for stealing your spotlight."

Lennon's sensors fell and his eyes opened. "Sleep while you can, Sasha," he broadcast, "your half of this duty begins in a few hours, and then we set out."

Sasha growled faintly. "I should evolve so I can put you in your place."

Rhiannon craned her head forward and kissed her vulpix. "We're all in our places. Sleep."

Sasha settled down and Lennon's sensors rose up to hover until the end of his shift.

* * *

"It's amazing how the landscape seems to come alive in the morning just as the sun rises." Lennon stood on a rock behind his mistress, resting his chin upon her head with his paws on her shoulders. His sensors stood in a wide pair of pairs. Before them a large portion of Ocimene's central area lay like an upside-down map. Far to their left, the tall transmission tower near Hexyloxy Harbor, and the vast Lake Nixymyl, fed by falls pouring over the Dithio Plateau. Between the lake and the spire of Mount Buchu, Linalool's neon lights battled vainly to shine brighter than the sunlight creeping over the land. On the other side of Buchu, the twin Myrcene lakes flanked Fenchone Plantation. It was quite a vista to share, as best as Lennon could relate it.

"It feels so different here," she admitted, attentively enjoying the portion of his perception that he could communicate to her through their entangled auras. "There's so much of it, so much life energy waking up around us. It makes the ocean back home feel so cold and desolate."

"It's waking up, and when it wakes up, it's hungry." Lennon's practicality pricked like a pin sometimes.

"I guess you think we shouldn't sit around enjoying the morning until something mistakes us for breakfast?"

Lennon released his mistress and took her left hand. "We have not reached our goal."

Rhiannon resisted. "Breakfast is a good idea though. Let's do some snacks. We can get further before wanting to take a real break that way."

Releasing her eevee and calling Sasha back from her play, Rhiannon sifted through her pack and found some more packages. She selected one in particular for her eevee, and another for Sasha. She unwrapped them while Lennon peeked inside for something his flavor.

"Sasha, this is yours, and eevee-boy, another something special just for you." The eevee took his treat in his mouth, but despite its flavor, which he learned from his first to be almost irresistible, and indeed he felt his salivation kicking into overdrive, he turned to Sasha and managed an inarticulate sound.

Sasha coughed a little flame to scorch her own snack and coat it with charcoal. Polite not to talk with her mouth full, she set it upon the snow gently and spoke in her native tongue. "It's 'special just for you'; I have my own this time, don't give me—" she hesitated as her speech T.M. seduced her to think of a notion that was a common-enough word to a human but ill-defined in the tongue of pokemon, "—contempt." She took her treat up and ran to a halfway snow-covered rock to eat it.

Comprehending what was behind Sasha's utterance was as difficult for the pokemon it was directed at as it was for Rhiannon overhearing it. Lennon was ignorant of the exchange, lost in a world where a lucario will go when a hunk of previously-foil-wrapped chocolate melts on its tongue.

The eevee ate his treat, but it did not taste exactly as good as he expected. Actually, it was perfectly exquisite but something else was affecting the flavor somehow. At least he could thank his trainer for it, and so he did, rubbing up against her and whistling a few high-pitched tones.

"Len, ask the eevee what's wrong, please."

They communicated and Lennon reported, "Sasha wanted his treat last night and didn't get it. Today he offered it and she didn't want it."

Rhiannon picked up the pup. "She'll be okay. She just needs to learn that we're here for each other equally. I've got one more of those special treats; how about I split it in half so you can both have some."

The eevee whistled again and said something more, which Lennon related.

"Well, it is. It's an imported delicacy. I've only heard about it because they're almost impossible to get and they sell out really fast at all the stores that try to stock them. I guess that place had one pack left because there are so few people up here. Anyway, I got them for you because I wanted to make this trip even more special, and Sasha… she's so picky about what she eats and she burns half of that to a crisp, anyway. She probably just wanted it last night to tease you. We'll see if she wants half of one later; if she behaves like a good girl."

With three pokemon whose stomachs were full enough to prevent the grumbles, Rhiannon unwrapped a protein bar for herself and together they began the next stage of ascent.

* * *

Rhiannon heard the obstacle's signature sloshing as it neared. "How is it?"

Lennon sighed. "It is wide, rapid, and filled with broken ice. We cannot cross here."

She sighed, too. "And, the map didn't show you any bridges."

Lennon growled faintly at the cartographer, assuming that there were bridges hidden along the river's path and that they were omitted out of either spite or incompetency.

"Well, which way should we go, east or west? If one takes us closer to an ice rock than the other, we'll at least make a little progress until we find a way over."

"It's due north if the map and the compass in this reporter are accurate."

Rhiannon was at a loss. "I guess we could flip a coin for it. If I had one. I should've had the guy at the market overcharge my account and give me some change."

Lennon protested. "We do not need to carry more weight and make attractive sounds up these mountains."

"I haven't heard much of anything all this way. Do you sense any pokemon or animals around?"

"Many animals, but they are small and stay away. There are rock pokemon beneath the snow, but I have kept us away from them, and the others have kept away from me."

Rhiannon gave him a hug. "So intimidating! You must be as tough and powerful looking as I think you are."

Lennon felt his blood rush to his face and stiffen his ears while his body relaxed somewhat, for a moment. His sensors lifted. "Something is coming. It's large and strong. A pokemon, in the sky. This way." He led his mistress back beneath the canopy of trees, but it was too late.

With a powerful thud, the pokemon landed and looked around. He could not see Rhiannon or her pokemon behind the bushes.

"Oh! It's just the mail man!" shouted Sasha.

Rhiannon twitched subtly.

Lennon stepped out from behind the bushes and snatched up Sasha by her scruff as she started to hop through the snow toward the dragonite.

Ford stomped above and slightly into the snow. Although he attempted to make for himself a proper pair of snowshoes, what he wore was clearly more concerned about keeping his feet warm than fashionably floated. "I figured looking at that map would've showed you that this isn't the place to be at this time in the season."

Rhiannon was undeterred. "We need to get across that river. Where's the nearest bridge?"

"There's not one. Well, if you follow it west long enough there's a hundreds-years-old tree that fell over it and made a bridge, but that'll have you in the valley, and if you wanted through there you wouldn't be here. You would have gone up from the forest north of Fenchone."

"We need to get across that river," she repeated, slightly discouraged.

Ford exhaled sharply. "I can carry you across. But, I won't be here if you change your mind an hour later, and I can't think of why you'd want to be up there. Nothing but failed fortune seekers, their relations, and some recluse crazies live on the range." Ford stayed his tongue before commenting further, considering that she might be one of those crazy's relations.

"Please, carry us across."

"And, I don't like the idea of putting you over there and leaving and not knowing if I'm at fault for you turning into ice sculptures."

"Please, carry us across."

Ford turned and looked up the mountain. "Do you even know where you are going?"

"I have to find a frozen rock that will make my eevee evolve. He wants to become a glaceon."

Ford turned back and approached her. Lennon took one step forward to remind him of his presence, but did not obstruct him. He lifted her chin with the side of his left index claw. "You truly love your eevee don't you? Enough that you wouldn't just send him off to one of those outfits that takes them out by the gross to ice and moss rocks and sends them back all fixed up?"

"I wanted to be there to see it."

Ford's eyes narrowed and he glanced at Lennon. Lennon nodded extremely gently.

"Recall your pokemon. I can't help you find the rock, but I can get you across the water. Just—" He paused while Rhiannon found her pokemon's balls one at a time. "—be very careful up there. A few years back, there was some trouble between the people and pokemon living up there. A lot of trouble in a few cases."

She recalled Lennon last. "I'm ready. Thank you."

Ford crouched and gripped her tightly. "Don't thank me here. Thank me at the Yureido mail office. If you don't, what you just said is my condemnation."

* * *

Sasha was out of energy in every possible way and begged for rest. However, the terrain was terrible and made setting up camp impossible. Furthermore, the weather was getting cold and the wind strong again. Lennon re-activated the 'WX' feature and learned that the predicted arrival of bad weather's next bout was being revised backward at least a few hours.

"Are we near where it should be," Rhiannon asked her lucario.

"Yes," he replied, "if the terrain markers on the map are right, the rock should be there when we get to a flatter part."

"Is there enough light for you to see where we're going?"

"You want to keep climbing."

"I don't feel safe here."

"We're not. Something is following us. It's smart. It follows our scents. But it does follow us."

"Are your feet okay?"

Lennon checked his shoes. "They are not freezing but they hurt. These shoes do not fit right."

Rhiannon gave Sasha a berry and recalled her. "Come on. We've got a glaceon to lead down a mountain."

Beneath the moonlight, Lennon carefully guided his mistress over the various stone outcroppings, freshly-fallen branches torn down by the previous night's storm, and patches of loose gravel. He did not notice an increase in markings slashed into taller stones and hearty trees' trunks. He sensed a few pokemon and many animals as they reached a more gentle incline. Mostly birds in both cases, and a few small rodents, too. That which followed them followed them still. The temperature seemed to drop suddenly with a graceful touch of rarefied wind. Lennon tried to sense if it was a distantly-cast gust attack, but all the lifeforms near enough to check were shuddering and shivering as well as he and his mistress were. Reaching to grip Rhiannon and shield her as best he could from the wind, he unfocused his aura sense and opened his eyes.

Yards away, peeking above a low wall of bushes like Mr. Chad Kilroy, stood a stone, covered with ice, not snow, and glistening brighter than the moon that illuminated it.

"Ree, we found it; not a minute's walk ahead of us."

The chill tempered her enthusiasm. "Thank God; a minute more is almost more than I can stand."

Something else tempered Lennon's as they pushed through the bushes into a somewhat empty area surrounding the rock. He caught her to force her to halt. His sensors splayed. "I feel a shadow ahead."

"So?" Rhiannon asked half innocently and half naively.

"That means something is there. Something I can't fight without techniques I haven't learned."

"Must we fight it?"

"I can't sense much about it, but it knows we are here, and it will not let us near the rock."

"Sasha, Len?" she asked.

He reluctantly agreed, "If the time she spent harassing wildlife at home earned her enough experience, maybe."

Rhiannon released Sasha, who flopped into the snow as soon as her glow faded. The trainer picked her up and brought her around with a gentle shake and call of her name. "Sasha, are you okay?"

"Tired."

Rhiannon grunted a saddened whimper. "Can you fight?"

Sasha scoffed. "You're kidding."

"Lennon said there is a pokemon between us and the rock, hidden in the snow. He said he can't fight it. Can you?"

Sasha stepped down from Rhiannon's arms and looked northward. The rock was there, and an expanse of snow. No pokemon, though. "This is a joke," she told herself, "they're making fun of me because I wanted to stop early. There's probably a glaceon behind that rock with a treat in his mouth ready to swallow it up and hit me with a snowball. I'll call their bluff and show them."

Sasha looked to her trainer. "Not unless you brought as much X-special-attack as I can handle without overdosing."

Sasha looked to her trainer, stunned, as she knelt and opened her backpack. "Lennon, tell me if this is the right one. I bought the physical kind for you but I guess that won't help her any."

Lennon confirmed the product. "Just her quick attack, but if I'm right, that move will be useless except for dodging."

"Um… sitrus berries, too, if…" Sasha said, and, "The one time…" she thought.

Lennon removed the booster shots from their packaging while Sasha ate her berries. She stifled a yelp with each jab as he pressed their cartridges one at a time against her rump and injected their contents with a slap. Each stifled yelp was accompanied by a bit of flame from her mouth, larger every time. With the sixth, the bit was large enough to startle her, and it glowed cyan and blue. Lennon guided his mistress back a couple steps, having not seen a Fire-type so heated since watching a typhlosion fight in a televised pro-circuit match.

Sasha trembled. Were her element any other, but ice itself, one would think the cold caused her to shiver, but this was a mixture of adrenaline, temporary performance-enhancing drugs, and fear of what lay beneath the sheet of white ahead. She huffed. Three feet of snow before her cleared away. "I'm fighting for our lives, aren't I?"

"Not if we turn around and leave slowly," broadcast Lennon as he brought Rhiannon back into the bushes and behind a plain rock, for protection. He saw that Sasha did not follow.

"No…" she laughed and coughed up a flame with little reach but plenty of intensity, such that her nose turned red-hot for a moment. "I'm fighting for Christmas."

"Use all of your power," was the beginning and the end of his advice to the juiced-up vulpix.

She advanced.

* * *

"What happened?" Rhiannon asked with an emphatic tone of worry after hearing Sasha shouting with effort and a vast and surrounding whoosh.

Lennon peeked around the edge of the stone. "Fire spin. There isn't any snow left."

Indeed, a few of the bushes at the perimeter now featured blackened leaves. The field itself was barren, save for one spot of white in what seemed like a divot beside the ice rock that still glistened, wet but no less encrusted.

Sasha slowly approached the white spot, and the white spot rose, revealing marks of purple, light blue, and vermilion red. It too began to glow, but faintly and with an aetherial shimmer.

"Have you, too, come to defile him?"

Sasha stood fast. "What who? We come for the power of that rock."

"He came for that power. They followed him. Its power was not enough. My power was not enough. They tore him apart. They made her watch. They tore her apart. They made me watch. They defiled their bodies. They wouldn't let me rest. I got stronger. They came back. My power was not enough. They defiled their bodies. They wouldn't let me rest. I got stronger. They came back. My power was not enough. They defiled their bodies. They wouldn't let me rest. I got stronger. They came back. My power was not enough…"

With each repetition, her voice's volume and intensity increased. Despite being a ghost, her emotions soon grew strong enough for Lennon to sense, if for no other reason than her shadow seemed to expand, obscuring if not absorbing aura patterns behind her, making Sasha's seem stronger by comparison.

"…they wouldn't let me rest. I got stronger. They came back. My power was enough. I defiled their bodies. I let them rest. I got stronger. You've come now. Have you, too, come to defile them?"

"I told you, we're here for the rock."

The froslass cast a spell and it began to hail upon the clearing. "The rock is now their headstone. Its power is now our misery. Approach it and you insult us."

"Ree burned her savings for this trip. Len burned a few days off of his life span. And, I've burned a path all the way up this mountain. It ends at that rock and I will burn my way through you if you make me."

"Your power is not enough."

"Show me."

The froslass raised its arms and Sasha began to charge forward. She covered a third of the distance when an ice shard struck her, cutting into her chest. Rhiannon recognized Sasha's cry, but Lennon held her tightly, in case she could not restrain herself. Sasha stumbled for only a moment and became somewhat angry at herself for letting an Ice-type get the first hit. She could feel the drugs in her blood stream surging throughout her body. Something else was burning within her; something she never realized was there. Her body began to shake again. "F-froslass. We don't have to fight. Jus—just let us use the rock and then we'll leave you alone."

The froslass's yellow sclera glowed bright around her cyan irises. With a blood-curdling scream she shouted to the heavens and cast another spell. "I will use the rock on you!" she yelled as her arms came down, and with it a sudden blast of snow, a blizzard that lifted Sasha off of her feet and flung her against the ice rock. The effect was so strong that even in the bushes, Lennon and Rhiannon were nearly peeled away from their hide. As they were carried from the stone, Lennon used half of his strength to grip his mistress and the other half to bury the spike of his left paw into the nearest tree. He gasped and groaned as the tsunami of snow threatened to tear him from that arm. When the attack subsided, the field was once again blanketed white. With a single ember, Sasha cleared a radius around herself and got back onto her feet. Her resistance to the element kept her conscious, but only barely.

The froslass glared at her. She felt the burning surging again. She was done with diplomacy. The froslass knew; she saw it in the vulpix's eyes. She was ready to lose again. She was ready to rest again.

Sasha snarled with anger and with pain as she let the burning within her prepare to burn without. Her bleeding chest bulged as she drew in more freezing air than her lungs had ever before contained, and when it came out it came as a flaming star that grew wider, brighter, and hotter as it rushed toward the frigid ghost.

Illuminated by the incinerating asterisk's glow, the froslass closed her eyes and cast her final spell, at least, for this encounter. She would rest. She would get stronger. They would come back. They always did.

The froslass's body was carried away upon the arms of Sasha's fire-blast for a moment before falling into the snowbank. Although at first it glowed from the light of the fire when it was blown upward, a different glow surrounded it on the way down. Not a second later, before Sasha could even turn to proudly tell her friends that she stood victorious, a flash of lavender light emerged from where her foe landed, a quickly expanding spherical shock-wave. When the vulpix was touched by it, her legs gave and she collapsed instantly.

"Is it over?" Rhiannon asked her guardian. He groaned. "Sasha? Sasha!" She shook Lennon to solicit his help, but he howled with pain. "Len… are you—"

"My arm. Something—it's stuck. My spike. Pull it out, Ree." Rhiannon gripped Lennon's left paw and yanked on it four times before it came un-stuck. He howled as his arm, no longer pulled straight, folded and twisted. "Please, Ree, any healing spray…"

"The backpack. It's gone. I can't find it. I'm sorry, Len, but—"

The lucario opened his eyes and by fortune saw instantly a glint of reflection, a spot of metal on the backpack, now almost completely buried under fresh-fallen snow. "There," he reached toward where her aura told him she was with his right arm and directed her, "about ten meters, just go straight that way."

Rhiannon crawled through the soft, loose snow, afraid to stand for fear of tripping, until she found her backpack. "Len! I have it."

He tried to bark, but emitted only a cough.

Between desperation and haste, she wasted a paralyze-heal on the way to applying two healing sprays on his arm and another on his leg, which did not announce its injury until he tried to stand.

Rhiannon heard his telepathy after he failed to find his balance. "I can't, my arm, I need a sling."

"Will a strap from the backpack work?"

Lennon whimpered. "Please, try."

Rhiannon found her eevee's ball and released its captive. The eevee looked around and jumped, noticing Lennon in a vulnerable position: something he had never before seen.

"Find Sasha, little guy. She fought so you could get to the rock. Make sure she's okay."

The eevee struggled to get through the snow, heading for the luminescent rock.

With a rescue knife, Rhiannon carefully sawed through the flaps where one of her backpack's straps was sewn to its body. Pulling it to its greatest length, she tied it into a loop behind Lennon's neck and rested his forearm at its lowest point. She began to help Lennon up.

The eevee cried out as loudly as he could three times.

"I'm coming!" she shouted toward him. "Len?"

He found her right hand with his right paw. "This will do. Go. I'll follow soon."

Rhiannon shuffled into the clearing, following her eevee's calls.

She reached the eevee's location and found Sasha's body in the snow. She picked it up and pulled it close. Sasha was colder than she ever was before; she did not even feel like a vulpix anymore. But, intermittently there was a tiny breeze, blowing against the winter night's wind in petulant defiance. It came every few seconds and emerged from the vulpix's tiny nostrils.

Lennon approached, dragging the backpack behind himself across the snow. Once he got there, he was able to translate what the eevee was chittering about. "He wants to know if she's okay."

"She's alive, but she's out cold. Literally. Len, I bought a couple revival crystals. Please, find one."

He searched through the bag and came up empty. "They're already crushed. Most of the things are. There is another spray—but its top came off. It's all spilled."

The eevee started again, telling Lennon what to communicate to their mistress. "He wants to take her to town to get better."

Rhiannon reached around near her side and found her eevee. She began to pull him close, and he hopped halfway into her lap. He nuzzled Sasha gently as Rhiannon spoke. "But, we're here. We made it. I know, we lost the rare candy to the ursaring, but there's gotta be something you can fight and beat, and—" her voice broke up, "—she fought so hard to get you your Christmas present."

The eevee said something softly, speaking with a whine into the vulpix's fur. Lennon conveyed the same tone in his telepathic translation.

"I want Sasha okay for Christmas."

Rhiannon broke down further, pulling him close. "You're such a good boy. You really deserve to get what you wanted."

He said something more. Lennon did not translate it verbatim, but instead said, "You know what he wants, now."

While Rhiannon returned Sasha to her ball and gathered her composure, Lennon invited the eevee to follow him and then used his good arm to place the eevee atop the rock. As Rhiannon started to stand, Lennon held her down and turned her head to face the stone. He placed his paw on her shoulder and rested his jaw on her head. His aura sensors splayed. The energy of the rock and the energy of the eevee swirled and entangled, creating a beautiful image for the few who could see auras. But, the eevee's body at that moment could not become host to the stone's essence. The crunching of compacting stone served as their goodbye as the three turned southward and left the stone behind.


	3. Adrift

Any Port, Part 3: Adrift.

* * *

Radio static hissed in competition with the atmosphere. Lennon tried to find an orientation that would give them an update on the weather, just to hear confirmed what they suspected. The way down was faster and easier, although the tricky spots were tricky both ways. Their path up was still visible, as not enough snow had fallen to fill in Sasha's gorge. There were other prints in the snow. They seemed light and confident. Whatever creature left them most often stayed on the trail, but it abandoned it and detoured every few dozen meters. What the prints belonged to, Lennon could not tell. The eevee asked a question.

"He wants to know if Sasha's still okay."

Rhiannon could barely speak, her lips cold and chapped and her jaw threatening to chatter like a particular novelty toy. "She should be stable inside her ball. As long as the button doesn't pop off, she'll be okay."

The eevee pulled ahead a little, less worried but no less concerned. They continued for a while, each thinking of but not speaking of a desire to stop. At a moment when all three were about to come to a wordless agreement, the radio cleared up to veto the motion. "…continue to intensify throughout the night. All trainers near the Azom Heights, Dithio, and Sulmepride districts are advised to seek shelter as a precautionary measure. N2HWX. Ocimene Region Pokemon League Weather Station service." A click and a gap of static came for a moment, then, a slightly musical electronic tone followed by, "N1WWV. Four. Six. Three. One. Niner. 0000 hours, mark. N1WWV." The tone played again, backwards. They did not stay tuned to listen for a repeat of the weather report; it had to be all downhill henceforth.

With the radio off, another gentle whisper became audible and grew louder as they descended. The river came into view, and near it, some thing, or things. Dark, and ill-defined, what they were was not apparent beneath the moonlight, but Lennon detected at least one small, weak aura moving about near the river's shore. Avoiding the scene they knew was the wise move, but without means to cross, they needed to follow along its path to find a way, and Ford did advise that they needed to trace it westward.

Although three forms came into view, one quite large and two rather small, Lennon counted only one aura. It was disturbed, distracted, and disorganized. It almost did not notice their approach. When it did, it turned about and extended its claws, brandishing them wildly, tracing arcs beneath the moonlight as they contrasted against the creature itself, almost invisible like a blot of ink on the snow. Only its head—indicated by two spots of red; one of amber; and one of magenta, off-center favoring its left—could be distinguished.

Lennon expected it to pose no threat if he were in condition to fight, but he was not prepared to battle one-handed, especially with his sling being an obvious vulnerability. They kept their distance as they passed by, until Lennon noticed the footprints scattered all about. "Were you following us?" he asked.

The creature kept its claws extended. "Yes."

"Why?" he asked.

"Need good trainer. Need help." He turned to face halfway toward the other two bodies. "Got sick."

Rhiannon asked what they were talking about. Lennon explained in summary. She took one step forward, "Let us try to help." She took another, "I don't have any poti—"

"No!" the creature shouted, in a word she could understand. "Bad trainer. I see; you hurt sad ghost."

The eevee approached the sneasel slowly and said something to it in a gentle tone. Rhiannon voiced a word of caution, and Lennon ordered him to retreat, but instead, when the sneasel replied, "Bad trainer; make you say lies," he leapt forward and tackled the black cat. Both rolled in the snow. The sneasel managed a few scratches, but even an almost untrained eevee three-tenths its size outperformed it by virtue of nourishment alone.

When the sneasel cried its submission and began to struggle not to fight back but to escape, the eevee stopped attacking it. It pulled itself out of a depression of snow halfway, too weak to withdraw further. The eevee began breathing heavily, panting and shuddering. The sneasel covered its eyes partially, too terrified to look but too terrified to look away as the victor stood tall above it; and taller; and taller still until it became of greater stature.

"Len, what—did my eevee just—" Rhiannon stopped when she heard her eevee's call, deeper and stronger, and almost fell over when he gently hopped up against her. She reached downward and captured the rear side of his head in her palms. Instantly she felt her forearms become wrapped with a ribbon each. They gripped gently and felt impossibly silky and smooth. "You're not a glaceon. And, you're not an umbreon. Eevee-boy, what did you turn into?" The pokemon she held made another sound and nuzzled her slowly.

Lennon projected, "I don't know." His mistress did not know if that was translation or his own statement. He walked to the sneasel and crouched beside it, slowly and carefully to avoid aggravating his injuries. "What caused all of this," he asked telepathically.

"I ate the last berry. Papa bear and sister were angry. Went to find food, none for me. They found meat. They ate. None for me. Sister got sick. Went to river to drink. Didn't come back. Papa bear looked, found her. She was more sick. Papa got thirsty too. Drank. She slept. He started to spit wet snow. He slept. They sleep all day and night."

Lennon switched from translation to reply. "Did you eat the meat?"

The sneasel spoke awkwardly in human tongue as though it would improve communication, "None for me."

The lucario spoke privately to his mistress. "This is the ursaring that attacked us. I think somebody put out poisoned meat to stop his raids. These two sneasels were the distraction that helped get us split up and off our guard."

Rhiannon asked with a weary voice, "Sneasel, do you know where we can cross this river without getting our feet wet?" It did. "Lead us there, and maybe I can find you some food. Okay deal?"

The troupe followed the inky blot, half obscured by now densely falling snow. It stopped at a part of the river that was a little narrow and had large rocks scattered about it, just large and close enough together to be carefully crossed. Lennon carried Rhiannon on his back, much to the anguish of his wounded leg, to avoid risking her suffering a misstep and falling into the waters. This time it was her turn to protest against deaf ears. Once they found the southern shore, nothing seemed like a better idea than to make camp, but their guide asked, "Food?" and a quick check with the radio indicated the precaution to take shelter was now upgraded to an alert. They traced back along the river eastward until they found the ursaring and other sneasel's corpses before turning south again, not wanting to miss Yureido and wind up in the more-densely pokemon-populated Allylidene Forest district. None of them had any fight left in them.

* * *

Legally it was trespassing, but when Doctor Baysleft found a tent in his office's backyard, he chose not to put on his badge and press charges. Walking through the sideways-falling snow, he shouted, "Whoa!" and raised his hands when Lennon burst from the flap with glowing energy around his right palm. Lennon's energy relaxed and dispelled, and with it went his constitution. His injured leg gave way, and only the snow's virtue broke his fall.

Doctor Baysleft rushed to the lucario's aid. "I think I can work you in first, today." He knelt, got the lucario's good arm over his shoulder, and lifted him up. "How are the others?"

The lucario's reply did not come until they made it back inside the medical side of Baysleft's office. "Vulpix, faint. Eevee, okay. Sneasel, hungry."

Baysleft conducted a quick physical. "Nothing serious, but you'll need a double pass. Can you get your ball?"

Lennon nodded.

"Good. Bring the vulpix, too; and your trainer if you think she's had enough rest."

Rhiannon came in out of the cold a little while after Lennon returned, led by her former eevee. "Hello? Doctor? I'm sorry about camping in your—Doctor?"

"Grab a chair. I'll be with you in a minute."

She found a place to sit and, feeling her new pokemon brushing against her legs, ran her palms all over its upper body, much to its delight, although nothing she felt helped to identify what it had become.

The doctor returned, straightening his coat, and moving directly to his computer. He did not even notice Rhiannon's arrival until he finished exchanging Lennon's ball for Sasha's. "Oh, there you are." He pulled up a task chair from his desk and rolled up beside her. He reached toward the former eevee and gave him some attention, too. "Here's your lucario. His arm will be sore for a few weeks. Meds will help but only a little. Feed him plenty of berries; he needs minerals." He rolled back to his terminal while Rhiannon released Lennon.

"As for your vulpix, physically she isn't in bad shape. I'd guess she took a few hard Ice- and Rock-type hits, but her actual vitality is almost completely wiped out. It's like she got hit by something strong enough to knock her out at least three times over. What happened to this girl?"

"I don't know," Rhiannon admitted. "There was a pokemon that Lennon couldn't fight because it was shadowy. She challenged it so we could get my eevee to the rock, but—"

The terminal chimed and spat out a report card.

"I see. She was destiny-bonded by a ghost, I'd bet. Are you familiar with that?"

Rhiannon denied.

"It's a kind of curse. A pokemon about to get knocked out can use it so its attacker suffers the same fate. If your vulpix used a powerful attack to finish that battle…"

"We gave her six X-specials. We couldn't risk losing."

The doctor gave Rhiannon Sasha's ball. "If the other pokemon had been destroyed, she would have been lost, too."

Rhiannon held Sasha's ball close to her chest and rubbed an etched strip with her fingers. "I—I didn't know…"

"Miss, in Yureido, pokemon aren't used for battle and show. I can see from your record that you treat them with respect and battle them only for their own developmental benefit. A girl doesn't get to your age with exactly one badge otherwise. But, if you're going to go exploring like a serious trainer, you need to train them like a serious trainer would, and you need to know the dangers you are going to face. Understand?"

"I think I do, now."

"Then that's a start. Now, if your sylveon is in as fine shape as he appears to be in—"

"Sylveon?"

"I hope that doesn't disappoint you, since you took him up to become a glaceon, but he seems not to mind any."

The sylveon whistled, put his fore-paws upon Rhiannon's thigh and licked her cheek.

She giggled and patted his cheek, "Thank you. If he's fine with it, then I am, too. But, there was another pokemon that was a little hurt."

"Your lucario mentioned a sneasel. Is that it?"

"I think so."

"I mean," the doctor pointed through the backyard door's window, directing Lennon and the sylveon's gaze, "Is that it?"

A small, dark figure with a tall magenta feather stood on a snow covered tree stump, staring northward. The sylveon trotted to the door, tugged at its handle with a ribbon, and went out, kicking the door shut behind himself.

"I promised it a meal, but I don't think there's anything left in my backpack that isn't ruined. Is there any way…"

The sylveon startled the sneasel, causing it to take a defensive stance.

Wind and snow blew the sylveon's ears, bows, and ribbons strongly to one side. "Come in. It's warm, still. Maybe food."

The sneasel glared suspiciously. "You feed me lies."

"You can come inside. Or, you can go home."

"Home died."

"You can come inside." The sylveon turned around, leaving the sneasel standing on the stump to look at the mountain, at the morning sun struggling to shine through snow and clouds, and at the faint glow of artificial light inside the doctor's office.

* * *

Zap opened the closet and stated the obvious. "Vera's gone?"

Mortimer pulled a sock over his right foot, and then another. "Someday this old man needs to buy new delicates. Wearin' two of everything just ain't getting things done in this weather. Yeah, she's gone again. Probably went to cause me more trouble, but I guess I can hope she's got somebody else to bother on the side. Lord knows there's plenty of her to share."

"Vera's Vera," Zap reminisced.

Mortimer tried to find two left socks that had holes in different places, so together they would make a fortified defense. "Kinda goes to support that old saying, you know?"

Zap shook his head.

The hiker smirked as he turned to face his roommate. "Women: can't live with 'em; pour me a beer."

The goat went out the back, where a more convenient wood pile formed during the break in the weather, and where a few six-packs lay in the snowbank. Mortimer turned his radio on and relaxed. Or at least, tried to. His gaze slowly shifted from the glow of his fire to a small shelf. Two pokeballs stood upon it. One on a stand and garnished with aged masking tape. The other adorned by the ink of a permanent marker. With a groan, Mortimer got upon his feet as Zap returned with a brown bottle. He took the marked ball in hand and rolled onto his bed. Zap heard the noise of a rickety bed sound more loudly than the music of the radio or the snap of the bottle's cap.

"Did you want this or was that part of the saying?"

Mortimer's eyes were closed. "Go ahead and start on it yourself. I'll finish it off if you don't."

Zap took a sip and settled upon his own bedding. "How long has it been?"

"Seventy-six days."

"Feels longer." Zap took another sip.

"Seventy-eight for you."

"What?"

"Phil. I mean, you didn't find out 'til after the fact, but that's when it was."

Zap poured a fraction of the beer into himself.

"I shouldn't have said that stuff like that then. You remember. I didn't even think there was a chance my friend would be next to go."

Crossing the cabin, Zap took one last sip. "Any more and I'll start sparking. Here, you need it more than I do right now."

Mortimer sat up and took the bottle. Plugging its mouth with one finger, he overturned it for a moment. Removing the digit with a drop of beer clinging to the tip, Mortimer touched it to the button stem of the pokeball he held. "Cheers, boy."

Zap did not notice that gesture, his attention focused beyond the southern window. "She's back, coming up the front way this time."

Mortimer scoffed. "How considerate. I wonder how many of our rations she's gonna be after."

Zap did not wonder. "She's bringing some stuff." The ram opened the front door and stepped out as Rhiannon's party approached.

"Is there room at the inn?" she asked.

"We'll make it."

* * *

Mortimer held his tongue. On one count, because he was finding himself compelled to hold his tongue in his own home. On a second, because while there was nothing special about what she brought—it was the best she could scrounge of what remained on the market's shelves—it was a meal. On a third, because of what she brought in with her. At least he was able to release a little of the pressure with reason and excuse, when the sneasel admitted through action that it was not housebroken. Alas, it having inherited speech, and being intellectual enough to comprehend "poop outside" in one lesson, and to apologize for his transgression, Mortimer's rant seemed like an overreaction in retrospect. Working on a second beer helped to put that in his past. It also affected his decision-making.

"It ain't blasting wind and snow like it was. Why don't you take your critters out there and let 'em horse around in the snow. I can see they're getting a little restless lying around a boring old cabin all day long." He noticed Rhiannon's reluctance before she spoke. "I still got a few berries and potions around if they get carried away."

Rhiannon and her pokemon exited through the back door.

Zap turned away from the sink when he heard the creaking noise of Mortimer's storage chest being opened. "You're going to give it to her?"

Mortimer withdrew a box wrapped with plain brown paper and an old shoelace for a bow. "Yeah. I ain't ever gonna replace him. Seems silly to have it lying around. And, I did bother to make it up all nice." He placed the box beneath an air freshener stapled to a bookshelf. He then stepped out the back and walked up beside Rhiannon and Lennon, the former sitting on a small stack of firewood and the latter standing behind her with his paws on her shoulders and his sensors splayed. Mortimer commented, "That vulpix's sure got a lot of fire in her." Sasha darted around a now well-melted circular area, pitching embers at the sneasel, who was quickly learning how to dodge them. After a few minutes the weather began to threaten again and they all returned inside, but not before, flying high overhead, he saw them. He saw a sneasel being chased and attacked by a Fire-type.

* * *

The sylveon did not pay it much mind, but Sasha noticed the new box and become disheartened when it had no indication of 'to', or 'from' for that matter, written upon it. Rhiannon and the pokemon settled in on the open floor and started after Christmas songs with varied degrees of competency. Mortimer had had enough of them being mixed into his radio and once again found himself holding his tongue and taking refuge in his bed. He almost fell asleep, even, before a thud shook the cabin, causing it to shed a little snow.

"Get your fat ass out here so I can kill you!"

Mortimer groaned and slowly got out of his bed.

Another strike. "You know I can break this door down!"

Lennon broadcast to the whole room his confusing perception. "The mail carrier?"

Mortimer slipped on some fuzzy slippers. "Quit your posturing! You can wait ten seconds to raise Cain."

Zap stood and started to build a charge, but Mortimer waved him off. "Looks like the place's gonna be all yours."

Mortimer threw open his front door and Ford threw Mortimer across much of the front lawn.

"You found another sneasel to torture. That's what you thought I ought to come see?" Ford jumped from the porch and landed one-third the way to where Mortimer stopped rolling across the snow.

"I ain't found nothing, and I sure as hell've got nothing I thought you ought to come see." He slowly got back into a standing position, and raised his fists as though he stood a chance.

Ford looked on the verge of outrage, but something was not adding up. "Then why did you let one of your trophies go to have it tell me to come here?"

Mortimer lowered his dukes. "Why'd I—what the hell are you talking about you—"

Ford reached into his otherwise empty mail bag and withdrew a sheet of paper. He quickly walked up to Mortimer and shoved it in his face. He read it aloud, words that Ford already paraphrased.

"I didn't write this. I didn't send this. And, after however long it's been since we've been civil, I sure as hell wouldn't—" He broke his stare away from the fury in the dragonite's eyes and toward the dark spot approaching quickly from his doorway. It halted once it got between Mortimer and Ford and seized the former by his right arm.

"Come in. Fun stopped when you left." The sneasel tugged him off-balance to encourage his compliance. Then, it noticed the dragon. "Papa bear said cats like me said, 'Use Ice!' " The sneasel quickly un-gripped Mortimer's arm with one claw, scooped up a load of snow, flung it into the dragonite's face, and resumed dragging Mortimer back inside.

Ford stood in the front yard for a full minute, looking through the cabin's southern window. Some of the snow slid and fell from his muzzle. More snow, from the sky, settled on it as replacement. He turned away when he heard a bird humming an unusual tune. It was the trophy that, earlier, mutely gave him an invitation. The bird's feathers were fluffed in defiance of the weather.

"I didn't miss anything interesting, did I?" Vera asked nonchalantly as she passed, continuing to the porch.

Ford followed behind her. "I thought he hated sneasels. When I put the gossip together and confronted him, he told me what he had done…" Ford paused as he saw the sneasel climb up on top of Mortimer soon after he fell into his recliner chair.

"…and yet, now look at what he is doing."

Ford approached the window. Rhiannon held steady a box wrapped in paper while Sasha bit one of the shoelace's ends and pulled it away. Then they traded roles, Sasha holding the box fast by standing on it with her paws while Rhiannon peeled away the tape. As much for excitement as the challenge being four-legged posed, Sasha clumsily separated the box from its lid and jumped backward when she saw what it contained.

"It's a fine show, but I can't forgive him. What he did to that—"

Vera blinded him with one wing and gripped his chest with another. The next thing he saw was his mail office's sorting room. Letters were strewn about, as was almost everything else that wasn't nailed down. Ford knelt near the center; three dead sneasels lay like twisted dolls around him. A faint voice from the south-west corner cried out. "Dragon, are you hurt? Are we safe now?"

Ford, this time seeing with absolute sobriety, looked in the direction whence once came a weavile with an ice-encrusted fist. Vera stood there, now, motionless.

"You know intimately the sin of wrath. Was it a sense of justice that excused you?" She walked to one of the bodies. "Envies-Other's-Prey would have killed her if he found her, so you protected her by killing him." She walked to another dead sneasel. "Digs-For-Rodents would have killed her if he found her, so you protected her by killing him." Vera walked to the last ruin. "Naps-In-Treetops would have killed her if she found her, so you protected her by killing this one, too."

Ford stood and took in the scene for a moment. "Yes. They would have killed her. They would have killed me. Do you think I wanted to kill them?"

Vera removed her pipe from her purse and cast a tiny spell to ignite it. She approached Ford and exhaled some smoke in his face. "If you had been too late, if you came back in here and found them standing over her hewn remains, would you have killed them?"

Ford's powerful muscles trembled for a few seconds.

"You now know how Mortimer felt. And, you also know that, putting all that he did do to her aside, he did not kill the one that slew his first best friend."

Ford looked down at the blood-stained letters. He remembered delivering them on his next tour of the mountain range. "You're telling me I'm no better than he is. Worse, even."

"I'm telling you that if you can see the justice in your past, you can also see the penitence in his present and future." Vera blew hard through her pipe and flapped part of her right wing, sending a plume of smoke and ashes against Ford's face and causing him to recoil. Her conjured plane faded and collapsed.

Ford was again looking through the cabin's southern window. A warm glow filled the room emanating from a vulpine form that slowly enlarged in the arms of a young woman.

Vera positioned her beak beside Ford's head and whispered, "One step at a time. Right now, there is a black cat wearing a fuzzy red hat waiting for you to fly home before the storm kicks up again."

Ford stepped down from the porch and spread his wings. He hesitated. "Xatu? How do you know what those three sneasels' names were?"

"Maybe I made those names up. Maybe I didn't. Don't ask me what I know and how; ask yourself why their having names in your mind now matters to you. Hurry home, Ford. My weather forecasts are most reliable." She vanished with a flash, teleporting into the cabin's closet.

* * *

Sasha bathed in the attention she was receiving from her mistress and teammates. The eevee didn't have much of an audience, and she grew a little bigger than he became, too. The only problem was he did not seem much to mind. He just sat and looked on as Rhiannon brushed out her newly-lightened fur. The brush was old, and already had hair like hers tangled in its bristles. Sasha excused herself and took a few steps forward.

"Well, what do you think?" she asked with a haughty tone in their own language.

The sylveon suddenly pressed his nose to hers, gently wrapped her neck with his ribbons, and brought his muzzle near her left ear to reply privately, "It's squished, but I think we should share my third treat."

When Rhiannon asked Lennon what just happened, he grinned slightly, for the first time inside that cabin, and told her, "Mortimer has a kecleon. He's been sleeping on a rafter since we first entered here. The only thing that has changed is that he now has a bit of mock mistletoe made of green paper and a couple marshmallows coiled in his tail. Sasha and Sylveon just stood beneath it."

Vera opened her door and stepped out and plucked a berry from Mortimer's berry jar.

Rhiannon hummed. "Sasha and Sylveon. He's got his evolution, it's about time he got a name."

"Zap knows many names," Vera advised.

Rhiannon exuberantly asked, "Hey, Zap?"

The ram removed the ear-buds of his new music player.

"Why don't you do the honors and give this guy a name?"

"Well, what kind of a name do you w—" Zap felt Vera's influence, making him remember a moment from the past. Vincent was agonizing over the last entry of a crossword puzzle. Theodore carelessly tore a few pages while flipping through a large dictionary, but successfully found the word: Like a ribbon or an eight, ten letters… "Ian!" Zap blurted out.

It got the sylveon's attention immediately; Sasha's a second later.

"Me 'n Ian, eh?" she mused.

Vera crossed the cabin and squatted on the far side of Mortimer. She whispered something into his right ear. It took a moment to sink in.

"Wait, you mean now I'm gonna have to come up with another one?" he called out to her as she stepped back into the closet.

She laughed, yawned, and shut the door slowly, "Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night."


End file.
